Oh it’s you again! Drenched Harry finds old admirer
PRINCE Harry was reunited with one of his oldest fans yesterday – and left her blushing when he planted a kiss on her cheek for the second time.
“Oh it’s you,” Harry said, when he spotted Daphne Dunne, 97, as he was greeted by well-wishers gathered in torrential rain at Circular Quay beside Sydney Harbour.
And indeed the two had met before – back in 2015 during his month-long attachment with the Australian Defence Force.
Mrs Dunne was wearing her first husband Lieutenant Albert Chowne’s medals, including the Victoria Cross he was awarded posthumously for storming a Japanese machinegun post in Papua New Guinea in 1945.
After the encounter she said: “He kissed me on the other cheek this time.
“He really is a lovely young lad. He’s warm and genuine and really cares about the injured servicemen and women. He’s doing a fantastic job supporting them.”
Genuine
Later during his walkabout in the downpour, Harry also stopped to chat to Mary Ann Kavanagh who said afterwards: “I told him it was very nice to have him in Sydney and I apologised about the rain. He said, ‘We need this at home – that’s the way it is.’
“He’s so genuine, so nice and so polite – just a lovely person. And he was without an umbrella and got wet.”
Harry, 32, was in Sydney to launch and help promote next year’s Invictus Games 2018 for injured and unwell military personnel and veterans.
He watched demonstrations of adaptive sports, including wheelchair rugby and sitting volleyball, before urging Australians to get behind their Invictus Games athletes when Sydney stages the competition next year.
In a rousing speech he said: “I promise you the sport you will see in front of you is some of the best.
“And I can safely say that sitting there and watching these guys and girls compete against each other – people who have fought together and recovered together – to see them serving their country once more on the sporting field, seeing literally, lives change through sport, is one of the most uplifting and inspiring things that I think you’ll ever see.”
Earlier the prince had paid tribute to the victims of the London Bridge terrorist attack.
He shared a platform with Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who emphasised the country’s close ties with the UK.
He declared that the terror attack on the British capital was an “attack on our values as well”.